As Chen awaits a passport to travel to the U.S. following his dramatic April escape—via the American embassy—from house arrest, meet the blind Chinese activist's relatives, supporters and fellow dissidents caught up in Beijing's dragnet

Chen Guangfu and Chen Kegui

Plainclothes security monitor the entrance to the village of Dongshigu, home to blind activist Chen Guangcheng, in Shandong province on April 28, 2012

Chen Guangfu, the blind activist’s brother, recently broke his silence over the family’s brutal treatment by local thugs in their village of Dongshigu, in Shandong province — which remains sealed off — following Chen’s escape from house arrest. The BBC reported excerpts from an interview with Hong Kong-based magazine iSunAffairs.com in which Chen Guangfu describes how he was detained for three days and two nights, interrogated and beaten. “They first asked me if I knew what this was about. I said ‘I don’t know’. So they beat me and slapped my face,” he said. Meanwhile, his son (Chen Guangcheng’s nephew) Chen Kegui has been charged with intentional homicide. Officials allege he hacked and wounded them during a confrontation soon after the escape. From his Beijing hospital bed May 15, Chen Guangcheng repeated concerns of “a pattern” of abuse against his relatives in another telephone call to a U.S. congressional committee.